
It is tempting, at first, to feel sorry for the handful of teachers who responded to this question by saying they don't have a teachers' lounge. (As one wrote, "There isn't time for it.") A closer read of all the responses provides a twist. This is indeed a story about haves and have-nots, but in this version, it is the have-nots who should be envied. The litany of sorrows up for discussion in the lounge -- gangs, discipline, lack of student motivation, "how the district is going down the tubes," and a broadly felt "testing, always testing, testing that never ends and sucks the soul out of education" -- makes it hardly surprising that one teacher advised, simply, "Don't go there."
It isn't enough, or even fair, to suggest removal of the teachers' lounge as a way of helping educators avoid obsessing about the pains and pitfalls of their demanding jobs. Instead, we propose an extreme makeover of this vital space.
Architectural Digest has never featured a teachers' lounge, but because we are fantasizing, the sky's the limit. We suggest adding a row of massage chairs, flower arrangements changed twice a week, a high-end Bose sound system (or even a resident string quartet), and a high-def flat screen TV (so "The Young and The Restless" can divert us from the young and the restless).
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